


Non Licet

by Improbable_Jam (crimsonherbarium)



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley's Flat (Good Omens), Emotional Sex, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, POV Crowley (Good Omens), The Night At Crowley's Flat (Good Omens), Wine, it's very sweet overall, no beta we discorporate like gentlemen, there's not explicit praise kink in here but it's clear crowley has one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:00:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29359917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonherbarium/pseuds/Improbable_Jam
Summary: Perhaps it had been a mistake, Crowley thought in retrospect, inviting the angel to stay at his place. He’d offered at least a dozen times over the past century, and Aziraphale had never once said yes. Now that he was here, looking profoundly anachronistic with his waistcoat and pocket watch next to Crowley’s aggressively modern decor, the demon found that he had no idea at all what to do.(In which certain lines are crossed, plans are made, and Crowley very much loses his cool)
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 112
Collections: Discord Community Archive





	Non Licet

“You can stay at my place,” Crowley offered, and Aziraphale had the distinct notion that, even though his eyes were hidden behind those ubiquitous sunglasses of his, he was avoiding meeting his gaze. “If you like.”

“Oh, er,” Aziraphale dithered. “I don’t think my side would like that.”

“You don’t have a side anymore,” Crowley said gently. “Neither of us do. We’re on our own side.”

⁂

Perhaps it had been a mistake, Crowley thought in retrospect, inviting the angel to stay at his place. He’d offered at least a dozen times over the past century, and Aziraphale had never once said yes. Now that he was here, looking profoundly anachronistic with his waistcoat and pocket watch next to Crowley’s aggressively modern decor, the demon found that he had no idea at all what to do.

The place was spotless, at least. It always was. Crowley had successfully admonished the flat into keeping itself clean over the years, and even the blinding white leather of the sofa refused to accept the smallest speck of dirt lest it bring down his wrath upon itself. He supposed it would be forgivable if his flat was an utter mess, given that he was supposed to be a demon, after all, and Hell wasn’t exactly clean, but he’d made it his mission to make it as least reminiscent of home as possible. 

Aziraphale’s shop, on the other hand, had been organized chaos. Tottering stacks of books as far as the eye could see, little dust motes twirling lazily through the air, loose leaves of papers and ink pens on every flat surface. Crowley suspected the angel had no more idea where anything was than he did, and would rather have abused minor miracles to retrieve the volume he was looking for than locate it amongst the mountains of collected literature.

“Er,” he said, grasping at straws. “Fancy a drink?”

Aziraphale rewarded him with a small smile. “Ta.”

Crowley had never been much for food, but alcohol was a wonderful human invention. Perhaps the best thing they’d created since being cast out from the Garden all those millennia ago—really, it had been such a short jump from eating the forbidden fruit to fermenting it. And, as much as he hated to admit it, Aziraphale’s discerning palate had had some small effect on his own preferences. He stalked over to the liquor cabinet and retrieved a superbly-aged bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape that he’d been saving for a special occasion since the late nineteenth century. 

Crowley didn’t own a corkscrew. One might have wondered how he intended to open the bottle without one, but this was a trifle for a demon, particularly a lazy one. He simply glared at the wine bottle until the cork, feeling sufficiently threatened, popped out of its neck and rolled neatly across the counter and into the bin. 

He upended the bottle, pouring generous measures into each of two glasses, and returned to the living room to join Aziraphale on the sofa. 

“Thank you,” the angel said, accepting it. 

Crowley sprawled out on the couch beside him, feeling the gravity of the events that had taken place over the past week hit him all at once. No more instructions forthcoming from Hell, at least for now. No more Armageddon looming over their heads. No more Bentley. No more late nights spent chatting in Aziraphale’s back room…

The angel appeared to be running the same mental gambit, his brow furrowed and the corners of his mouth downturned. “I’ve no idea what I’m going to do without the bookshop,” he said, wringing his hands. “All those centuries collecting… _the first editions…_ I’ll never be able to replace them.”

“How _did_ you get discorporated, anyway?” Crowley drank deeply from his glass.

Aziraphale looked away. “Ah. Yes. Bit embarrassing, really. Sergeant Shadwell happened to glimpse me talking to the Metatron, and he made a number of incorrect assumptions, and—well. You know how he feels about witches,” he said with a meaningful glance. “I was trying to stop the fool from crossing the circle, and I wasn’t paying attention where I was stepping, and…you know the rest.”

Crowley was deathly silent. He stared into his glass, swirling the blood-red wine around it. Any other day he’d have leapt at the opportunity to take the piss out of Aziraphale for getting discorporated in such a laughable way, but he was realizing quickly that there wasn’t a damned thing about it he found funny. 

“…Crowley?” Aziraphale’s brows knit in concern. 

“Thought you’d died,” Crowley said wretchedly. “Properly died. You weren’t answering your phone, so I came to fetch you, and when I got to the shop it was burning down and you weren’t there. I thought—” he broke off. 

Aziraphale’s face softened. He reached out and covered Crowley’s hand with his own. Crowley drained his glass, wishing he was far drunker than he already was, which was to say, not at all.

“You thought I’d stopped speaking to you and then gone and gotten myself killed,” Aziraphale supplied. 

Crowley nodded. He snapped his finger and his empty glass refilled itself. 

“We both made rather a mess of things,” the angel said wistfully. 

“Understatement of the century.”

“I am sorry, you know.” Aziraphale looked down at his hands. “I never meant for you to worry about me.”

Crowley scoffed. “Am I ever not worrying about you? Look at all the trouble you’ve gotten yourself into over the millennia, angel. You keep putting your trust in the wrong people.”

“I don’t see the slightest thing wrong with wanting to see the good in people.” Aziraphale puffed up like an offended pigeon.

“Not really my department.”

“It used to be.” Aziraphale looked at him pointedly. “What is it you keep saying? You never meant to fall. You just—”

“Hung out around the wrong people.” Crowley grimaced and took another gulp of wine. “Point taken.”

There was a long silence, in which Crowley and Aziraphale both sipped from their respective glasses and a nearby houseplant shed a leaf onto the carpet and Crowley glared at it as if he were trying to set it on fire. 

“So,” he said eventually, “What do we do now? We’re both going to be out of a job, sooner or later. Probably sooner.”

Aziraphale sighed. “I suppose I should pop by the bookshop in the morning and see what’s left. I certainly won’t be able to miracle the whole thing back to the way it was, but I’m sure _some_ of it is salvageable.” 

Crowley pondered this for a moment. Aziraphale had always been the sensible one out of the two of them. Perhaps it _was_ better to just carry on as if the world hadn’t technically ended earlier that evening. “D’you want company?”

Aziraphale smiled that pure, radiant smile that always made Crowley feel as if he’d done something right for once. “Oh, thank you. That would be love—”

Without thinking, Crowley leaned in and kissed him. 

He didn’t realize what he’d done until Aziraphale’s wordless exclamation of surprise startled him out of his reverie. Crowley scrambled backward, half-formed words of apology tumbling incomprehensibly from his mouth. 

Aziraphale didn’t move at all, his eyes wide, both eyebrows raised, his mouth open in shock. 

“Shouldn’t have done that,” Crowley finally managed to articulate, wishing there was a convenient font of holy water nearby for him to hurl himself into. “Bad idea. Head office—”

The rest of his sentence was lost, as Aziraphale suddenly threw his arms around him and kissed him back. Crowley stiffened and then melted into him, his hand coming up to tangle in Aziraphale’s wild hair. Relief washed over him like a wave, tension he’d been carrying with him since the bookshop fire evaporating as suddenly as a soul in hellfire. Aziraphale was _here,_ and solid, and very much alive. Thank Go— thank Sata— thank somebody. 

They broke apart, and as soon as the starry look in Aziraphale’s eyes had faded, his expression resolved into one of indignance. 

_“Six thousand years,_ Crowley,” he lamented. “How long—?’

“Since the beginning,” Crowley said, looking back at him in disbelief. “Since you gave away that flaming sword of yours like it was a coupon for a box of tea at the supermarket. You?”

“I’m not certain,” Aziraphale admitted. “It came on slowly, I think. You’re not nearly as bad as you’d like everyone to believe—”

“Watch it,” Crowley warned.

“—but I don’t think I realized until the Blitz,” he finished. “I forgot to protect my books from the explosion, do you remember? And you thought to save them for me.”

“Wasn’t hard.” Crowley shrugged.

“Perhaps not, but it did make me realize you cared for me. And that I…loved you.”

Crowley found himself feeling extremely grateful for his sunglasses. “You know I…” he struggled with himself for a moment. “Don’t make me say it, angel.”

“I know.” 

Aziraphale shifted closer to him on the couch and leaned in to kiss him once more. Crowley threw himself into it, tried to say everything he couldn’t say with words. Neither of them had consciously done it, but eventually somehow Aziraphale ended up sitting on Crowley’s lap with one hand resting on his chest and Crowley’s arms around his waist. 

When at last they broke apart, both were breathless and there were tears in Aziraphale’s blue eyes. 

“What’s wrong, angel?” Crowley asked, distress rising in him. Aziraphale shook his head. 

“Only joy, dear.” he said wetly. Aziraphale had always worn his heart on his sleeve. It was one of the things Crowley loved best about him. You never had to guess what he was thinking. His face said it all, and far more succinctly than he would have put it himself. 

“Don’t think I could have stomached Earth without you,” Crowley confessed. “It would have been dreadfully dull.” 

Aziraphale chuckled. “You certainly keep things interesting.”

“Do my best.” Crowley buried his face in Aziraphale’s chest, breathing in the scent of his cologne and old books. Familiar. Comforting. Safe. Aziraphale’s hands carded through his hair and he sighed contentedly at the sensation. Too long waiting. They had a lot of lost time to make up for.

He couldn’t deny the fact that his traitorous body was responding quite enthusiastically to Aziraphale’s proximity, nor could he ignore that Aziraphale’s seemed to be doing the same in return. There was a definite blush on the angel’s cheeks that was rapidly spreading down toward his collarbone, and his pupils were blown wide. 

“Aziraphale,” he offered tentatively, “Do you want to…?”

“Oh! I—that is to say—” Aziraphale dithered, looking everywhere except at Crowley and flushing an even deeper shade of red. Crowley tightened his grip around the angel’s waist and he abruptly stopped babbling. “Yes,” he finally managed. “The answer is yes.”

Some time later found the two of them in Crowley’s bedroom, half-undressed and tangled up in each other. Crowley’s discarded clothes lay rumpled on the floor; Aziraphale’s, on the other hand, had folded themselves neatly as they were discarded and settled in an orderly stack on the bedside table. 

Perhaps the greatest temptation he’d accomplished, Crowley thought to himself as he laid on top of Aziraphale, kissing him deeply and feeling the stiffness of his cock through his trousers, was turning an angel, and he hadn’t even meant to do it. He was an utter failure, by demonic standards. Not that he cared.

Aziraphale, as it turned out, was just as generous a lover as anyone would expect an angel to be. He lavished Crowley with affection, paying careful attention to the way he responded to the things the Aziraphale did and adjusting accordingly. Crowley learned with surprise that he was very fond of having the places where his wings would have been if he’d felt like having them massaged, and in turn discovered that kissing Aziraphale anywhere on his neck turned him into a babbling, incoherent mess. 

“Are you sure this is alright, angel?” Crowley asked as his hand trailed down to the waistband of Aziraphale’s trousers, and the angel nodded. 

Crowley undid the snaps on his trousers with dexterous fingers, pushing them clumsily down Aziraphale’s hips. He was surprised how much he enjoyed this. For a demon, he’d done remarkably little temptation relating to pleasures of the flesh. The humans’ clumsy portrayal of such scenarios tended to make him laugh. He’d never seen any reason to bother, when he could accomplish far more by simply slowing down the internet connection on his block to a crawl for an hour or so. 

It was all new—the softness of Aziraphale’s tummy underneath him, the loving touch of his fingers, the dazed and delighted expression on his face when Crowley kissed him. It was an expression Aziraphale normally reserved for only the biggest joys in life, like the acquisition of a particularly rare book he’d been wanting, or an especially exquisite meal (the kind reserved for only the most special of occasions, the kind he only indulged in once a century or so). It dawned on Crowley that this wasn’t the first time he’d seen Aziraphale make this expression in relation to him. He’d always attributed it to something else at the time, but looking back, the angel had been making eyes at him for centuries. He mentally slapped himself. 

“I love you,” Aziraphale murmured, and the strength of emotion that washed over Crowley when the angel’s eyes met his was enough to make him want to discorporate on the spot. It was more than he could handle. He’d spent the better part of six thousand years threatening to kill anyone who said anything remotely nice to him. It felt strange, almost wrong, to accept it now, particularly from the person he wanted to hear it from most. 

Crowley was still wearing his sunglasses. He didn’t often take them off. It had started as a way to hide his eyes from the humans, an effort to blend in better, but over the centuries he’d really grown to like them. They were more than just stylish—they were a part of him. Armor he wore to face the world. 

Aziraphale reached up and removed his armor. Crowley didn’t fight, though he felt profoundly naked without his shades. They came to rest, neatly folded up, on the bedside table, and he blinked his serpentine eyes to adjust to the change in brightness. 

“Have I ever told you,” Aziraphale remarked, blushing still deeper, “that I think your eyes are beautiful?”

“You definitely haven’t.” Crowley kissed his way slowly down Aziraphale’s neck to his chest. “And lies don’t suit you, angel.”

“It’s not a lie,” Aziraphale protested. “I really do like them. I like them because they’re _yours_. I couldn’t possibly think anything about someone I love is ugly.”

Crowley stopped abruptly and pushed himself up on his elbows, peering at Aziraphale’s face with interest. “You really mean it, don’t you?”

Aziraphale smiled. “I do.”

Crowley kissed him. Kissed him like the world was ending. Well, really it had, earlier that afternoon, but like it was ending all over again, and it was just the two of them and a crumbling planet left to contend with. Aziraphale made a noise of surprise at first, but melted into Crowley as surely as they both knew the two of them would likely be destroyed by their respective head offices tomorrow, or the next day, or the next day. It would never _really_ end. There was just tonight, and each other, and a bottle of excellent wine in the next room that by some (small) miracle would never go empty. 

Aziraphale pressed up against him urgently, desperate to be free of his unbuttoned shirt and trousers, and Crowley was only too happy to oblige. He shed his own clothes like a snake shedding his skin, and slipped Aziraphale’s shirt and trousers from his body with care. 

The angel’s skin was warm and incredibly soft against Crowley’s as he sank down on top of him and covered his body with his own. He pressed his lips to Aziraphale’s and hummed in pure contentment. There was something grounding in the sensation of Aziraphale’s hand cupping his face, something that felt more solid and real than anything else that had happened to him in the past week. 

“Are you sure this is alright?” Crowley murmured, entwining his fingers with Aziraphale’s and bringing them up to his lips so he could press a kiss to each individual knuckle. 

Aziraphale smiled. “In terms of the Almighty? I’m surprised we haven’t both been smote down already—”

“In my humble opinion, the Almighty can bugger off.”

“—but in my book?” The most beautiful smile spread over Aziraphale’s face, and Crowley’s heart skipped a beat. “Crowley, this is _perfect._ ”

Crowley suddenly felt himself overwhelmed by a need and force of emotion so strong he was shaking. He tangled himself up in Aziraphale, wanting desperately to be closer than their physical forms would allow, exploring every inch of the angel’s skin with inquisitive fingers. 

He was exquisite, from the stark contrast of his white hair and pale skin against Crowley’s black satin sheets to the minute gasps he let out when Crowley touched him just so, to the way his fingers knotted in Crowley’s hair and he arched upward when Crowley at last wrapped his fingers around his cock and began stroking it. 

“I want you,” Crowley breathed into Aziraphale’s ear, relishing the choked gasp in the angel’s throat. “God, I’ve wanted you for so long.”

Aziraphale managed to compose himself just enough to perform a minor miracle, and a moment later a bottle of lube was being clumsily pressed into Crowley’s hands. He wasted no time in opening it, coating both himself and Aziraphale liberally, hissing at the coolness of it against his hot and aching flesh. 

Letting the bottle fall carelessly to the bedspread, Crowley knelt between Aziraphale’s legs and lined himself up with his body. He looked up, one eyebrow raised and a question on his lips. The words were never spoken—the look of absolute rapture on Aziraphale’s face stopped them dead in his throat.

The angel answered him anyway. _“Yes,”_ he said emphatically. “I’m yours.”

Crowley swallowed the lump in his throat and pressed his cock against Aziraphale, pushing slowly into him as the angel let out a soft moan and bit his lip. The sound that came out of Crowley in that moment surprised even him, a keen of sheer wanting and need that started somewhere deep in his throat and wracked his entire body as he clung to Aziraphale in the near-darkness, the angel’s arms wrapped tight around him, as close as it was possible for two people to be and still be two separate people. 

Crowley hadn’t realized until this exact moment just how much he’d wanted this, just how badly he’d needed it, just how much his entire being had been crying out for Aziraphale in every moment that they stood next to each other for Satan only knew how long. His breath came in ragged gasps, Aziraphale’s in soft moans, as he made love to him gently in the unreasonably large bed in his Mayfair flat. He was slow, he was tender. He was everything a demon wasn’t supposed to be. His angel was there, his and only his, hands tangled in Crowley’s hair and skin pressed against Crowley’s skin. 

Aziraphale’s brow knit ever so slightly as if in pain, and Crowley stopped, concern flashing through him. “What’s wrong?”

“Sorry,” Aziraphale managed. “It’s just a bit much.”

“Sorry, angel.” Crowley pressed a kiss to his forehead, chasing the wrinkles away, and slowed his movements. “Is that better?”

“Yes.” He smiled. “Thank you.”

Crowley lost himself in the motion of their conjoined bodies, in the rocking of his hips, in the blessed lines of Aziraphale’s face as he closed his eyes and parted his lips. He really was beautiful like this. The look of pure rapture on his face rivaled _The Ecstasy of St. Theresa_. Privately, Crowley had always been pretty sure St. Theresa had had a demonic encounter she’d mistaken for angelic; it was bloody hard to tell the difference if you didn’t know what to look for. Either way, the way she’d described it had been anything but chaste. 

Six thousand years and several near-death experiences made everything all the sweeter. Crowley loved Aziraphale so fiercely that it _hurt_. His fickle heart threatened to pound out of his chest as he pulled him still closer. It beat so loudly in his ears as Aziraphale gasped and clung to him that for a moment he thought he really _might_ discorporate right then and there. If anything on this Heaven- and Hell-forsaken earth was going to finally do him in, it may as well have been this. This was too much perfection, too much gentleness, too much love, for a lowly serpent like him. He felt like a thief accepting it, but he took it anyway. He stole kisses wherever he could. He committed every carnal, sinful, rapturous expression and sound Aziraphale made to memory. It would have taken something far stronger than holy water to strike those images from his mind. 

Aziraphale kissed him with those perfect lips, tangled his hands in Crowley’s hair. Held him close, comforted him, as if he were the only one left grieving in the wake of something as inconsequential as the end of the world. Looked at him with such _love_ that Crowley couldn’t possibly have borne it for another instant— 

“Angel,” he gasped, rapidly losing the battle. “I’m—”

“It’s alright, Crowley,” Aziraphale replied breathlessly, flushing even deeper. “You can come.”

As if there were anything he could have done to avoid it, when Aziraphale looked like that and said things like that and felt like that, tensing around Crowley as he tumbled over the edge, flushed and shaking and as utterly uncool in the moment as he possibly could have been. 

Mercifully, Aziraphale had never been cool in his life, and even more mercifully, he wasn’t far behind. Crowley groaned as Aziraphale cried out, spasming underneath him, reaching out to pull him down into one last, tender, lingering kiss. 

It was nothing short of a miracle that Crowley didn’t combust on the spot. 

Much, much later, finally having disentangled themselves from one another and miracled away the mess, the two of them lay side-by-side in Crowley’s oversized bed in silence. It was the comfortable sort of quiet, the sort that demanded nothing in the way of conversation. The two of them had gotten very good at this type of quiet over the centuries. As long as Aziraphale’s rhythmic breathing continued to his right, Crowley could be assured that the world was spinning on. He could cope, as long as he had that. 

Aziraphale was the one who finally broke the silence. “What do you think is going on up there, right now?”

“Same thing I reckon is going on downstairs.” Crowley rolled to face Aziraphale. “They’re deciding what to do with us, aren’t they?”

It was back—the little wrinkle of worry in Aziraphale’s brow, in no way blunted by the faint, wistful smile he offered when his eyes met Crowley’s. 

Crowley suddenly felt very tired. Very tired, and very, very old. 

“There’s got to be a way,” he offered, grasping at straws. “We stopped the bloody apocalypse in time for tea, didn’t we?”

“I wonder,” Aziraphale said thoughtfully, “if you have any more of that wine?”

“Course I do. It’s your favorite, isn’t it?”

“Well then.” Aziraphale shook himself as if he were trying to unruffle his feathers. “If you wouldn’t mind terribly…”

“Yeah?”

“I’m certain if we put our heads together, we can come up with something.”

And so passed the first night after the end of the world. An angel and a demon conspired, fingers intertwined, until the first rays of sunlight prickled over the horizon. A certain delivery driver snored peacefully next to his beloved wife. In Tadfield, the moon hung full over Jasmine Cottage.

And somewhere, unnoticed by anyone, a nightingale was winging its way toward Berkeley Square.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi:_ Gods may do what cattle cannot. 
> 
> Guys, I honestly never believed that this was a real thing that happens to people, but I found this fic, 85% completed, buried and forgotten in my Scrivener folded. I think it's been almost 2 years since I wrote the bulk of it. I'm not sure what happened to strike it from my memory (maybe I felt Sir Terry's eyes on the back of my neck or something), but I was delighted when I found it and I think it still holds up. I finished it up for you, so hopefully you're still around to enjoy it now ^^
> 
> Thank you very much for reading, and if you like my writing, please consider leaving me a comment!


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